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When students have the English-language PDF of this Brief Case in a coursepack, they will also have the option to purchase an audio version.

The marketing director of a new minor-league baseball team must design, conduct, and then interpret survey research to determine optimal ticket pricing that will yield large attendance figures and contribute to the owner's goal of breaking even in the first year of play. The pricing assignment becomes more challenging when other variables like concessions revenue are considered. Students are asked to complete a quantitative assignment as part of case analysis, but they must grapple with less quantifiable factors as well.

learning objective:

1. Discuss the design, implementation, and interpretation of research surveys. 2. Learn to use quantitative analysis methods to develop a "scaled" pricing strategy. 3. Help students to understand the sometimes subtle relationships between pricing and the possible impact on sales of auxiliary products.

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Lawrence Coburn and Pankaj Prasad, co-founders of the event solution startup DoubleDutch, have to make a significant decision about their young company's sales function. DoubleDutch's key product was a mobile application (app) and event management platform that customers could use to better engage and connect with their event participants (e.g. attendees at a conference, employees at a quarterly sales meeting), and also to obtain detailed information from these participants to deliver a better future experience, understand how the event was received, and receive large amounts of valuable data. The company was growing quickly and rapidly adding new customers, but Coburn and Prasad wanted to make sure that in the drive to add new customers, existing clients whose contracts were expiring were not "slipping through the cracks" when it came time to renew. But who within the company should be responsible for renewals? Sales? The customer success team that helped customers develop and deploy the product? Or an entirely new team dedicated solely to renewals?

learning objective:

To examine the issues and options facing a start-up in a new market space when it comes to sales and marketing, including hiring, sales deployment, role responsibilities, budgeting, and customer retention.

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Studies show that only a fraction--perhaps less than 10%--of companies' strategic plans are effectively executed. One reason is that C-suite strategists, years removed from customer contact, may have an obsolete vision of the company-customer interface. The author's research reveals four steps companies can take to improve the alignment between strategy and sales.

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The Senior Vice President of FormPrint's Medical Products business unit is considering issues raised by the upcoming introduction of a new 3D printing system, the Ortho500, which could print custom exoskeletal orthopedic splints, braces, and casts that conformed to a patient's body. The potential market extended beyond large urban hospitals (the Ortho's existing market) to high-volume outpatient offices in the U.S., with a long-term goal of expanding internationally. The product represents an important new market opportunity for FormPrint's Orthopedic business unit, but requires a new approach to marketing and sales. The immediate issue is whether the product should be sold by FormPrint's existing orthopedic sales force or by independent sales representatives. Other issues include the role of the Ortho500 in the company's global marketing strategy and the need for better marketing-sales coordination in a changing healthcare marketplace. If the Ortho500 failed to meet sales targets, bonus compensation would be reduced and the department could face layoffs. The case focuses on a core marketing decision-direct vs. indirect channels of distribution-and raises important issues in strategy development and implementation. The FormPrint case is ideal for use in courses on marketing strategy, marketing organization, B2B marketing, or new product development.

learning objective:

Understand the importance of sales force management to coordinate marketing and sales in a context where shorter product life cycles and channel management are important competitive factors. Demonstrate the impact that both formal systems and informal relationships may have on marketing implementation. Analyze how marketing strategy influences a product introduction.

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That gap between your company's sales efforts and strategy? It's real--and a huge vulnerability. Addressing that gap, actionably and with attention to relevant research, is the focus of this book. In "Aligning Strategy and Sales," Harvard Business School professor Frank Cespedes equips you to link your go-to-market initiatives with strategic goals. Cespedes offers a road map to articulate strategy in ways that people in the field can understand and that will fuel the behaviors required for profitable growth. Without that alignment, leaders will press for better execution when they need a better strategy, or change strategic direction with great cost and turmoil when they should focus on the basics of sales execution. With thoughtful, clear, and engaging examples, "Aligning Strategy and Sales" provides a framework for diagnosing and managing the core levers available for effective selling in any organization. It will give you the know-how and tools to move from ideas to action and build a sales effort linked to your firm's unique goals, not a generic selling formula. Cespedes shows how sales efforts affect all elements of value creation in a business, whether you're a start-up seeking to scale or an established firm looking to jump-start new growth. The book provides key insights to optimize your firm's customer management activities and so improve selling and strategy.

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"Selling and Marketing in the Entrepreneurial Venture" discusses key aspects of selling and marketing in an entrepreneurial venture. The Reading explains how to identify and test a venture's potential with early adopters, how to identify core customers, and how to integrate selling and marketing activities in a new business. It also sheds light on how entrepreneurs can sharpen their understanding of customers, as well as gain valuable insights into the venture's product or service, by conducting visits with potential customers. In addition, this Reading provides an in-depth example of a relatively young company that discovers a need to redefine who its best customers should be. The Reading dispels myths about what defines an effective salesperson and explores basic aspects of integrating selling and marketing in a venture, including how best to use the sales funnel framework and how to make decisions about the company's go-to-market system. A supplementary reading offers deeper insight into the considerations that potential customers evaluate in deciding whether to switch from a product or service they are currently using to one offered by a new venture. A second supplemental section analyzes the selling and marketing challenges faced by the founders of an engineering startup and the strategies the founders formulate and execute to surmount those challenges and drive growth in the business.

There are two Interactive Illustrations included in the Reading: one contrasting retail versus direct sales business models, and another explaining the upstream and downstream effects of different sales on a firm's business. There are also a three short videos linked to the reading: "Design Your Product to Sell Itself", "The Feedback Loop", and "Aligning Strategy and Sales". Review Questions and Exhibit Slides are available in the Supplemental Materials tab.

learning objective:

1. Understand the factors that influence customers to adopt a new product or service offered by a venture 2. Learn how to select potential customers for visits, conduct the visits, and use insights from the visits to refine a venture's offering 3. Gain familiarity with a process for defining a venture's core customers 4. Understand what makes entrepreneurial selling unique 5. Learn key aspects of integrating selling and marketing activities in a new venture

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"Business-to-Business Marketing" provides a comprehensive review of the fundamental concepts and theories related to aspects of business-to-business (B2B) marketing. B2B marketing refers to exchanges of goods and services between institutions rather than to individuals or end consumers. Compared to business-to-consumer (B2C) marketers, B2B marketers face distinct challenges rooted in the nature and needs of customers' buying criteria, purchasing processes, and strategic considerations. This Reading discusses five core elements of B2B marketing: 1. Links between business-to-business marketing and business strategy. 2. The impact of market and account selection. 3. The complexity of buyer behavior. 4. The need to understand and communicate buyer benefits. 5. The importance of organizational alignment.

The Reading includes an Interactive Illustration, "The Benefit Stack and the Decision-Maker Stack," which analyzes the motivations (often competing) of the many decision-makers involved in a B2B purchase. Review Questions and Exhibit Slides are available in the Supplemental Materials tab.

learning objective:

1. Explain why in many B2B firms, the strategic choices may be inseparable from marketing choices. 2. Describe the goal of B2B market selection as matching the value delivered by a firm's core capabilities with the benefits sought by end users. 3. Describe how B2B buying decisions are made by multiple individuals with different perspectives, motivations, and structural/procedural constraints. 4. Explain how in B2B markets, benefits-real and perceived-determine value and, ultimately, price. 5. Convey the importance of synchronizing product, sales, and service units as co-creators of customer value.

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The Clique Pens Writing Implements division of U.S. Home is a manufacturer of a full line of pens, pencils, markers, and art supplies. Despite solid sales, division president Elise Ferguson has seen gross margins drop from 42% in 2010 to just over 36% in 2012 as a result of various discounts, allowances, and other off-invoice deals. She is now considering a move away from these discounts in favor of Market Development Funds (MDF), which would be used explicitly to promote retail merchandising activity for Clique and in theory provide the company with more control of trade promotional dollars to influence consumer behavior. Along the way, Ferguson must consider the structure and problems of various trade promotions and the conflicting needs of her sales and marketing departments. This case introduces basic elements of promotion and pricing policy and the challenges of marketing through major mass retailers.

learning objective:

1. To gain insights from the manufacturer's point of view about how distributors and retailers should behave as collaborators. 2. To understand the struggle of most consumer products companies to craft promotions that directly elicit an end-user response rather than have inflated retailer margins. 3. To recognize that an effective promotions strategy needs to be coordinated across internal divisions (e.g., marketing and sales departments) as well as across distributors and retailers. 4. To understand that the conflict between marketing and sales is rarely resolved to either function's satisfaction, in part because of different reward/compensation structures.

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Pemberton Products is a U.S. market leader in the cookie and bakery snacks segment of the sweet snack market. Looking to expand into the salty snack market, the company acquires Krispy Inc., a maker of salty snack crackers located in the southeastern U.S. To compete with premium cracker brands, Pemberton plans to reformulate and re-launch the Krispy brand as "Krispy Natural," which offers natural ingredients, improved taste, and revised packaging. Market tests in Columbus, Ohio show market share results that are double the company projections while results in 3 cities in the southeastern U.S. fall well below expectations. The marketing director must interpret the market test results, consider possible competitive responses to the new brand, and present his recommendation for a national rollout to the VP of sales and marketing.

learning objective:

Analyze traditional, quantitative test market data and understand the role of managerial judgment in the interpretation of hard data. Anticipate and prepare for competitive reaction to marketing moves. Consider the implications of corporate culture and senior management expectations for the decisions and behavior of a company's middle managers.

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The CEO of SafeBlend Technologies must set a price for the company's environmentally friendly fracturing fluid additive. The firm is negotiating a new contract with its biggest client, Bristol Natural Gas. For the past two years, SafeBlend has been the sole provider of additives to Bristol due to aggressive negotiation and limited competition. New competitors are entering the market, and the CEO believes one competitor is prepared to offer Bristol a chemical-free additive for 50% less per gallon than SafeBlend. Anticipating lower bids from competitors, he considers reducing the price in the new contract to maintain the relationship with Bristol-despite the impact on revenue. However, the competition may not be able to supply enough additive to meet all of Bristol's needs, so he also considers the impact of setting a more competitive and profitable price that assumes losing only a portion of Bristol's business.

learning objective:

• Understanding how a firm can quickly create-and then quickly lose-a competitive or differential advantage. • Understanding the importance of account management and raising the issue of how client management may impact (either positively or negatively) long term competitive advantage. • Understanding how pricing strategies may evolve in a highly competitive market. • Understanding how creative specialties are created, and how they can easily turn into commodities. • Understanding the subtle interaction between pricing and selling.

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